Meanwhile, on the Inside

Saturday, July 21, 2018: Jacob grills out on his newly-cleared patio.

My last post focused on what we accomplished outside the Mesa house last weekend, but we also had time to tackle some indoor tasks while I was there. During the previous month, the "junkyard" surrounding the house had demanded so much of our time and energy that we were forced to put off most of the interior work. Now, at last, we're able to start organizing and planning for inside the house. It's a long, long list.

A car-full of doors, loaded up at Home Depot.

After doing what we could on Friday (July 20), as I mentioned in the last post, Jacob and I worked up a list and spent quite a lot of time at Home Depot. Since I'd decided to stay away from the Valley for the coming six or eight weeks, I wanted Jacob to have everything needed to stay on top of the home repairs and improvements until I returned. By the time we left the store, I'd spent almost $2,400 there.

Most of that was for a new garage door and garage-door opener, including installation sometime in August: $1,687.00, not including tax. I'd planned for about $1,500, so it wasn't too far off.

Jacob and a worker figure out how to secure the tailgate.

Most of the remaining amount went to purchasing more doors to be installed: three new bedroom doors and an outer door to replace the one at the side of the garage, which cost a total of $340. Plus $210 for trim to put around all the doors. Plus assorted other hardware to complete the job.

Jacob was sure we wouldn't be able to load all our doors, trim, and boards in my Traverse. Even the cashier expressed doubt. They talked about renting a Home Depot pickup or making two trips. But I was confident. I may not be great at math or science, but the spatial awareness of my inner artist can gauge scope and scale quite accurately. I assured them that we'd fit everything in my car, although it might be a bit too long and we'd have to get creative with the tailgate. 

I was right, as witnessed by the pictures above! The worker who helped us remained skeptical until the final door was inside, but we got everything in and the guys were able to secure it safely for the drive back to the house.

BEFORE: What the bedroom doors looked like until two days ago.

AFTER: New bedroom doors, installed by Jacob and Julien!

A week later (day before yesterday), Jacob and Julien worked together to take off the broken old doors of all three bedrooms and install the new ones, along with the trim and new doorknobs. What a difference! Now the doors actually latch shut when they close them, no slamming required. 

For Jacob, this new, white a/c vent cover was a big highlight of my visit.

Several weeks ago, the guys removed the dirty "popcorn" texture from the living room ceiling and painted the now-smooth ceiling white, and then they painted the walls a light blue (Jacob's favorite color--and mine). It looks so much nicer than the punctured, tri-color walls left by the former occupants. The guys (thank you, Riley) also installed a brand-new ceiling fan/light and new outlet covers and switch plates. However, Jacob was none too happy when I told him he had to put the original, corroded, gunmetal-gray vent cover back on the air conditioner vent. He insisted it ruined the whole look of the room.

In the end, I relented and bought a pristine, new, white vent cover. I think Jacob was more excited about that new vent than anything else we accomplished last weekend. He couldn't wait to screw it into place. I must admit, that finishing touch made a big difference.

Dylan called while his brother was preparing to attach the vent cover, so I explained what was going on. "Is that what it means to be an adult?" asked Dylan. "When you get excited by little things?" 

"I once wrote a whole blog post on my new shower curtains," I deadpanned. "That should answer your question."

Julien handles the covering of shelves and drawers with contact paper.

On Saturday, when it got too hot to work outside any longer, we started on an indoor project that I'd told Jacob we were going to finish before I went back home...no matter what. I was determined to finally get him moved into his kitchen so he could start cooking at home instead of eating out so much.

Jacob had already replaced all the shelves in the upper cupboards (the original 39-year-old shelves were pretty rickety), so the first order of business was to cover them with contact paper, along with the drawers. Julien took on that task while Jacob and I worked on unloading the boxes labeled "kitchen" and deciding where each item would be shelved.

Just a few of Jacob's kitchen boxes to be unloaded and put away.

Since the lower cupboards have yet to be prepared for use, it's probably just as well that Jacob didn't have a ton of things to be stored in the kitchen. His recent divorce had seen to that. We'd already filled the small pantry several weeks ago, so there was room for almost all of his dishes and cookware in the upper cabinets. He still had one bin filled with bake-ware, but everything else was put away by the time we were finished.

Finally, a cupboard filled with dishes (Julien's are on the top shelf).

It was very satisfying to see the cupboards loaded with Jacob's things. Recently, it's been starting to feel more and more like Great-grandma's old house, but now it's time for it to start feeling more like Jacob's house.

Jacob chose white curtains for the kitchen window over the sink.

The one thing that made Jacob want to get cooking again now was the patio we'd just opened up that very day. Not completely, but the sliding glass door and small corner window were gone. A large opening gave an unimpeded view of the barren dirt yard and abandoned pool (not pretty, but far better than a sea of junk) and allowed air to flow inside. And it was clean.

We had to go to Albertson's to find a tri-tip roast for Jacob to cut into steaks.

So, that very afternoon, Jacob and Julien had gone shopping for a gas barbecue grill while I'd stayed behind to clear a work space in the kitchen, preparatory to unloading his boxes and filling the cupboards. They returned with a nice but modestly-priced grill.

After Jacob had the grill all set up, we rolled up our figurative shirtsleeves and tackled the kitchen project. When it was done, we went shopping. Jacob had his mind made up we needed to grill tri-tip steaks. I'd seen the name before and sometimes read it in recipes, but I'd never seen tri-tip for sale in any stores where I shop. Thus, I'd never eaten tri-tip until we stopped at my cousin Craig's house in Woodland (northern California) on our family vacation last October. He and his wife Colleen had served us a wonderful meal of salads and grilled tri-tip. It was amazing.

Turns out, it's a common cut of meat in that part of the country. Jacob, who served his mission in northern California (2010-2012), knew and loved tri-tip steaks well. And he'd discovered it was available here in Arizona, at Albertson's. Guess where we went shopping.

Jacob grills corn and steaks on his brand-new grill. It finally feels like home!

My original plan was to leave that afternoon around 4:00. I usually stayed until Sunday morning and headed home after Jacob left for work on that day. However, on this particular weekend I was teaching the lesson in our Relief Society on Sunday, so I needed to get home by Saturday night.

On the other hand, I felt I'd really earned myself some grilled steak (which Jacob did to perfection). So I ended up staying until nearly 8:00 and didn't get home until 10:45. But, oh, it was worth it!

My deliciously-grilled dinner to enjoy before I left Mesa.

In my absence this most recent weekend, Jacob and Julien worked really hard to finish the yard and get the last of the large trash into the roll-off container, which will be removed for good tomorrow (Tuesday). As of yesterday (Sunday), they'd totally finished clearing the rest of the yard, including the second landfill at the far side-corner of the house and removing all the excess wood that had enclosed the patio. Jacob said it came off pretty easy, with the help of Maryhelen's sledge hammer.

I had him send me photos of the completed work so I could do the last two before-and-afters. Here they are:

BEFORE: The side-yard when I left Mesa last weekend (July 21).

AFTER: No more landfills! Jacob says he'd like to plant a tree here.

BEFORE: The illegally-enclosed patio before we began dismantling it.

AFTER: And, voila! It's a patio again! (With Julien's pit bull, Porsche.)

Still needs some repair, obviously, but so much nicer now.

While there is still much to be done over the coming months, I'm finally feeling like this crazy "Money Pit" venture is becoming manageable. And I am ready for a long break!